2014 was the year that organizations embraced social advertising as a significant marketing channel, alongside other major channels like TV and Search. The IAB reported in 2014 that mobile advertising powered largely by the growth in areas like Facebook surpassed Display ads as the second biggest digital channel in the US.

New products from the major social networks and elite in-house agency practices dedicated to social meant that creativity within the space exploded. Social.com took a look at these latest trends in digital media and compiled a comprehensive report: the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Advertising Benchmark.

The report takes a look at Social.com customers all around the world and how they’re leveraging the Big Three platforms: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Researchers found five major evolutions that represent the accelerated growth of social advertising in 2014.

1. Social advertising has gained a new level of maturity in 2014, with advertisers dramatically increasing their investment in various channels to achieve new and ever more sophisticated business goals

2. Agencies around the world have built elite social advertising practices staffed by specialists in optimizing advertising in channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.